How to see a wedding ring on your own hand before you buy

Can you try on a ring online?

Yes. A virtual try-on takes a photo of your hand and shows a ring on your finger. The older kind lays a flat picture of the ring over your photo, which is fine for a rough idea of colour and poor at width, because the picture does not follow the curve of your finger.

Our ring try-on works differently. It is given the ring's own product photograph and the width you choose, then draws that ring onto the fourth finger of your photo in the light of your photo. It works on every ring we sell, plain wedding bands as well as engagement rings and it is free: three pictures for each email address every thirty days.

Ring try-on: A photo of your hand, any ring in the range, at the width you pick.

How do you take a photo that works?

Photograph the back of your hand in daylight against a plain background, with your fingers slightly apart and the ring finger in full view from the knuckle to the base. A sharp phone photo is ideal. You do not need to be wearing a ring and if you are, the try-on replaces it.

Avoid a dark room, a busy background and a hand cut off at the edge of the frame. A photo that is not clearly one hand is refused before anything is made and a refusal does not use one of your three pictures.

What should you compare with a try-on?

Width is where a try-on earns its keep. The same design at 4mm and at 6mm can look like two different rings. The only way to know which suits your hand is to see both on it. Try the width you think you want and one either side of it.

Colour and finish come next. A black ring reads very differently on fair and dark skin and a polished band throws more light than a satin one. If you are torn between two designs, make one picture of each on the same photo, so the light and the hand are the same in both.

Couples can use it together. Each of you uses your own email address and your own hand, so you get three pictures each and you can see a pair side by side before you choose.

Which ring suits your hand?: Width and style by finger length and hand shape.

Satin, polished or hammered?: How each finish looks and how it wears.

What a try-on cannot tell you

It cannot tell you your size. A picture shows how a ring looks, not how it fits, so measure your finger separately. Our free size finder works from a ring you already own or a strip of paper and takes about two minutes.

It cannot show weight. A platinum band weighs nearly five times as much as a titanium band of the same size, which changes how a ring feels far more than how it looks. The ring weight tool gives the weight of each metal at every width.

It is a guide, not a photograph. The picture is made by AI, so colour, shine and fine detail can differ a little from the real ring. Every picture is checked against the ring's own photograph before you see it. The photographs on each ring page show the ring as it is.

Ring size finder: Measure at home from a ring or a strip of paper.

Ring weight by metal: What each metal weighs at every width.

The paper strip test for width

If you would rather not upload a photo, cut a strip of paper exactly as wide as the band you are thinking about, using a ruler marked in millimetres and wrap it round the base of your ring finger. Look at it from a normal distance, not close up, because that is how other people will see it.

Cut two or three widths and swap them over. It shows nothing about colour or finish, but it settles the width question in five minutes and costs nothing.

Band width guide: Every width drawn to scale, with what suits which hand.

Use a ring you already own

Any ring you wear already is a useful yardstick. Measure its width across the top with a ruler and you know what that many millimetres looks like on you and whether you want more or less of it.

The same ring gives you your size. Measure the inside diameter in millimetres and the size finder converts it, with an allowance for band width, because a wide band fits more snugly than a narrow one in the same size.

Should you try rings on in a shop first?

A shop is the one place you can feel weight and profile, which no picture can show. If you live near a jeweller, trying a few plain bands of different widths and shapes is time well spent, even if you buy elsewhere.

Be aware that a shop sample is often a standard size and a standard width, so it tells you about the style and the feel rather than the exact ring you will order. Note the width and the profile of the one you like, then compare those numbers with the ring pages.

Wedding ring profiles explained: Court, flat court, D-shape and flat: how each one feels.

The order we would do it in

Start with the try-on to narrow the designs down to two or three. Settle the width with the try-on or a paper strip. Measure your size with the size finder. Then order, knowing that every ring page states its own returns window and that a ring left unengraved can come back for a change of mind inside it.

Buying wedding rings online: What to check before you order a ring you have not held.

Returns: Which rings can come back and how.

See your engraving: A picture of the ring with your words engraved inside, made by AI. Free.